Please discuss this cartoon

See, you push the paradigm so far into lala land that me even suggesting that "NOT ALL RELIGIONS ARE EXACTLY THE SAME AND DO NOT ENTAIL THE SAME CONSEQUENCES WHEN PRACTICED LITERALLY" as 'defending Christianity'.

I'm not defending Christianity. I'm making a statement that Islam has inherent differnces that make it more dangerous than Christianity and have explicitly shown you the reasons and the best you can come up with is a strawman argument of me 'defending' it.

It's really simple. I'll stop "defending" Christianity when people like you make erroneous Resa Aslan type comments about how "All religions are exactly the same and preach the exact same thing".

 

I know a lot of white liberals (I live in Brooklyn). I can tell you that these white liberals don't make a lot of jokes about Muslims, but do laugh at Book of Mormons - you're right that a Book of Muslims would not go over well which is why there is no Book of Muslims.

But the idea of liberals defending Muhammad - I have never seen it. I have never seen these Muslims apologists you speak of. What I do see is people advocating people being able to build a cultural center in downtown Manhattan and the rights of Muslims to have the same rights as them. The people I know are against Saudi Arabia and its repressive culture and horrified by the treatment of women and minorities in the Islamic world. But they also don't condemn or judge people just because they are Muslim.

I think what happens is that people on the right feel Islam is the root of the problem, and therefore attack Islam, whereas the left sees the problem as more cultural and don't want to paint every Muslim with broad strokes, but still condemn the violence as much as anyone else. The right than comes back and says the left is being an "apologist". It's one big strawman.

 

You've never heard a white liberal have a 'fact of the day' that goes something along the lines of "Did you know that Muhammad was the first figure to grant women rights?"

I've heard it personally face to face. I had to chuckle also when that individual stated it. Also, it isn't a strawman when many liberals blatantly lie with asinine assertions such as "Islam is the religion of peace". I'm sure they aren't willfully spreading false claims because more than likely they heard these **** claims from an actual Muslim apologist and assume it to be true and repeat it Ben Affleck style as if it were true.

There are ways to properly separate individual Muslims from Islam without making blatant lies about Islam. For starters, we can begin with the fact that most Muslims just happen to be born into the religion and in most cases just follow Islam culturally and use their natural empathy to make moral decisions subconsciously.

^^
That is the responsible way of not being a bigot and condemning all Muslims while not making excuses for Islam itself.

 

No, he kinda said "you should follow me to death and f**k your family, follow this imaginary man in the sky". That leads to HELLA problems with anybody concerned with policy issues in the present. Then his words and actions were misinterpreted or interpreted by politicians dressed in bishop's robes to enshrine a legacy of misogyny, repression of sexuality, and violence. To the extent that things have gotten better after the reformation, it is because of people turning away from this sick ideology more than anything else.

Christianity practiced literally can be as problematic. Several Christians TODAY are calling for the deaths of all homosexuals to stop AIDS, which followed a legacy of mass torture and lobotomization of homosexuals in America--the only difference between the Christian crazies and ISIS isn't their ideology, it's the power they have to execute on it.

Which gets to my larger point:

Nothing can do more to stop all of this then a secular republic that respects the rule of law.

And I see A LOT more existential threats to that in North America than Islam--nevermind trying to export this anywhere else.

 

Hey ATW,

You mean like the countries with mass torture regimes to stop political Islam?

How are the oppressive "secular" regimes working out for the Middle East? How's Egypt, nominally secular, doing now?

As for the rest, how do you feel when you fill up every day and contribute straight to the coffers of theocracies? How about you stop making fun of the Greens and join them--or is tax money too much for you to make a ******* difference?

Not sure what point you're making besides emphasizing the need for both a republic that truly aims to be secular and which respects the rule of law, and showing your utter inability to affect events halfway around the world, the same thing you took JuanValdez "to task for".

 

You seriously have problems with making an assertion and drawing it out to tangible realities.

Telling your followers that worshiping God is a personal 'relationship' while stating that relationship is more important than your family has far less devastating consequences than the EXPLICIT desire to merge state and religion that Muhammad has repeatedly desired through the tasfir of the Quran and Hadith.

One of those notions drawn out has more devastating consequences for non-believer of each respective ideology. Be rational and draw those two lines of thinking out and tell me both are equally devastating for the non-believer.

 

I could concede on this point, as I already have before. But here's where your logic really mystifies me:

It's really simple. There's one line of defense that turns away both from the devastating consequences of Islam and the less devastating consequences of Christianity (let me just give you that). It involves turning away from both, because they're fruits of the same poisonous tree. A stronger, secular society helps defang both.

Why does it matter if one is better or worse than the other if they're both bad?

When I see people like you trying to have some internal pissfight about which one is "better", I just laugh. Ultimately, both should cease to have any collective impact, and everybody who can fight to achieve that should have no illusions over which is better or worse--they are both bad. What does it matter if one is "worse", besides how it is being treated already.

Work to secular republics at home. Acclimate all religious people within it. Gradually start the process of destroying all irrational dogma. Bonus points: rid world of effect of Islam, Spaghetti Monster, and Scientology.

 

How about this. Don't make the initial claim that both religions have the same exact consequences and then I won't find the need to correct it?

Seems more rational than "Why do you feel the need to correct blatantly false assertions?"

 

I see people who think like you around and I will be straight honest, they nauseate me. I STRONGLY dislike people who don't do anything about the causes they espouse and who can't grapple with their internal biases. Call it insecurity if you want. I call it acting on a visceral dislike.

I have never seen you offer one tangible solution to the problems you claim. Not a one. The day you offer one will be the day you start in my books.

 

Um, how about this--

You don't assume I've ever made that claim, because I haven't and I have had exchanges where I've made clear I don't believe that. But yeah, let's lump me in with people who made this assertion so you can avoid talking about why you feel the need to defend irrational ideologies.

Along with your broad brush on "white liberals", it gets me back to a belief that everybody just creates broad ingroups and outgroups in politics for no reason. I'm part of the problem I guess, but it is f**king stupid.

 

Are you serious? Someone else made that claim in this thread and I was correcting THAT INDIVUDAL and you butted in to defend his assertion that you are now backtracking. Don't butt into the middle of a debate, agreeing with the other side and then walk back on your claim stating that you never made the initial assertion. That seems quite ****ing disingenuous

 

You should ask the question of those tortured and killed by Assad and people like him (who number much more than all the deaths caused by ISIS). You should ask the question of the Iraqis and Afghans who had to die because of mass torture rings and "Mission Accomplished".

That's been the response to political Islam. They are not the same, and guess what, the world is treating Islam accordingly.

What solutions do you want to escalate beyond that?

 

I have never heard from anyone that Muhammed was the first to grant rights to women or whatever. I'd expect that more from a Muslim than anyone else though. Frankly it's immaterial to me. I have no idea if it is true or not, but it really doesn't matter because I don't subscribe to any religion.

I don't know the history of Jesus or Muhammed and that's not important to me. What's important is how people behave. Anyone who blindly follows a book without a humanistic lens is a dangerous individual no matter what the context of that book is.

And I think that's where our point of contention is. I think angry people will use whatever to justify their actions and hate, and religion is a great tool for justifying. I think you feel it's the other way around and the religion is what inspires violence.

 

Sigh.. I shouldn't have stated "white-liberals' as now Northside has 'ammo' to deflect the topic at hand because now his feels like was offended because I used the term 'white liberal'. My bad. Sorry to offend you.

 

I've never made the initial assertion you claim I had--my initial assertion was and is that you're not doing yourself any favors by praising any personal relationship with any god. period. I can't make it clearer than that. I highlighted the part of your post I have issues with.

If you can concede that no religion is good, I'd be more amenable to your position, but as it is, every time you post I always think that Islam has s**t in your bed and stolen your girlfriend.